Birmingham, Ala (WIAT) Two grieving families anxiously await Joran van der Sloot finally going to court in Lima, Peru Friday morning. The trial is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Lima time….that’s 9 a.m. here in Alabama.
Joran van der Sloot links the families of Stephany Flores and Natalee Holloway is a grim embrace of circumstance. Stephany’s corpse was found in van der Sloot’s Lima hotel room on the five year anniversary of Natalee’s disappearance on Aruba. Van der Sloot has confessed he killed Stephany after she found material about Natalee on his laptop. He was the last person seen with Natalee Holloway when she disappeared on a graduation trip to Aruba in 2005.
Stephany Flores’ family is still holding out hope they can convince the court to increase the charges to include a possible life sentence. Stephany’s father, Ricardo Flores, claims Van der Sloot has lived “like a king” while the Flores family mourns.
"He had an indifferent and prideful attitude. He looks as if he has everything under control. He looks better than when he appeared on TV after he was arrested," Ricardo Flores told CNN.
Prosecutor Miriam Castellares is asking for 30 years in prison, on charges of murder and simple theft; however, Flores’ family is asking the public prosecutor to amend the charges to “robbery followed by murder.”
According to Edwar Alvarez, the Flores family’s lawyer, with different charges Van der Sloot could receive life imprisonment.
"We aim to present evidence during the trial that will lead the prosecutor to change the classification of the crime, so that it becomes robbery followed by murder. This will not be 30 years in prison, but life imprisonment,” he told the Lima newspaper El Comercio.
Van der Sloot’s defense lawyer, Jose Luis Jimenez, claims his client is optimistic. "His mood is super good," Jimenez said during a telephone interview Wednesday.
Jimenez will argue that his client was in a state of emotional distress when he killed Flores and "seek to reduce the charge from first-degree murder to simple homicide." The latter carries a prison sentence of from eight to 20 years.
Jimenez said his client, whose prominent lawyer father died of a heart attack on an Aruba tennis court in February 2010, was in a fragile state from years of being under suspicion for Holloway's presumed death and other legal problems stemming from that case.
"The killing was impromptu. There was no planning to carry it out," Jimenez said.
Not surprisingly, Flores family lawyer Alvarez disagrees. He will argue that van der Sloot’s motivation was robbery.
"This guy wanted to take the money of the girl because he, in communications he had with his friends in Holland through Facebook and email, stated that he had no money, that he had no money or food, that his stay in Peru was hard and he told them: 'I am on the verge of prostitution,'" Alvarez said in an interview.
Alvarez predicted Van der Sloot would plead guilty Friday in an effort to get a reduced sentence.
Jimenez, the defense attorney, ruled out that possibility.
So where is the Holloway family in all this?
Mother Beth Holloway, not usually media shy with a cable tv show and a speaking career based on helping families of missing persons, has declined to comment.
Her ex-husband Dave has organized and bankrolled several searches of Aruba…including one soon after van der Sloot’s arrest and return to Peru. He is currently waiting word on a petition to the Jefferson County Probate Court here in Birmingham seeking to have Natalee officially declared dead. His lawyer says he’s “seeking closure”.
